The briefing place was a stone room wide at its sides, clearly built to be hosting other such gatherings, illuminated by torchlight.
The smell of armour oil, odours, stenches, and even more stenches filled the room. Truly foul stenches, and many bodies clogged the space despite it being fit to host perhaps a hundred or a few dozen more than that. The stenches of those hundred as well, apparently.
Yanis had found a place among the assembled guards, and for whatever odd, perhaps instructional reason, everyone had organised themselves into neat little columns and rows, standing themselves into an attentive posture that even in his greatest imitations, came stiffly to his body.
As they waited on the Khehlun's arrival, the free and supposedly well behaving soldiers murmured in various mundane conversations.
There were dozens of them in attendance, which only made his irritation at the smell stronger, tensing his jaw. He refused to give them the satisfaction of attempting to scratch it out of his nose, and he instead distracted himself with the snippets of conversation he could hear, they were apparently the twelfth group called for a meeting today.
'These guys stink…' He flared his nose faintly, unable to ignore it for too long. The scent didn't even quite smell like recent, light body odour. It was in flashes so pungent that it even tasted like dirt settled on the body for weeks, but he could certainly argue that it could as easily have been years. 'I get the need for realism, but…'
Yanis was impressed by the game. He was wholly and certainly impressed, to the extent where he thought of it as impressive only because if he tried to think of a bigger word then even that one might not do justice to how good it was, so he maintained it. However! In this particular instance, surrounded by these particularly unruly guards, in this very particularly unhelpful room, it was hard to appreciate it. And he found himself worried because it was clearly something they were used to living with.
Releasing a slightly stronger huff of air from his nostrils, he tried to rid himself of the lingering stench. And thereupon, his eyes then wandered in attempt to find something to distract himself again, regardless of however brief the distraction might be, eventually falling on the person beside him.
The guard was younger than many others.
He stood still and straight, with pale blue eyes that trained ahead over a visage that hadn't quite settled despite the fact that Yanis had found him here when he arrived. The young man didn't seem to be paying much attention to anyone, with his hand resting over the pommel of his blade, almost comfortingly.
Yanis looked away before the guard noticed.
Not too long thereafter, the door at the far end swung open, and the conversation died instantly, just as the well-mannered guards that he had taken them for should do.
Khehlun entered, and the room felt smaller for his presence in it. He was very tall and broad across the shoulders, perhaps standing at just over two meters. The man, with grey hair flecking his temples and a faded scar that ran from his left ear to his jaw, carried himself with a confidence that imposed on everything else around him.
Yanis felt a discomfort sit in the air that faintly restricted his breathing as the man's brown eyes moved across the assembled guards, walking to the front of the room.
His gaze seemed curious at first, then recognition came, seemingly - as far as Yanis could tell - satisfied with the head count, and so he moved on.
"There are three days until the coronation." He said, and his voice resounded through the room, "Soon, we will officially have an Emperor again, and I am here to re-emphasise to you all," Khehlun's brows furrowed deeply, and the pressure against Yanis's lungs held him short of breath as he continued jaggedly, "There cannot be any disruptions or incidents. And if they do occur they must be met with urgency to fell them well in time."
Yanis couldn't reconcile at all, whether to feel fascination, frustration or thankfulness at the shortening of his breath, from the man's presence that filled the air.
'He's awakened...' The realisation flitted, as he found some kind of appreciation in the fact that at least, as couldn't take too deep a breath, he was no longer laid helpless subject to the stench.
"We will be guarding more than the young man being enthroned." Khehlun's voice dropped in register, from the almost threatening pointedness, and his shoulders drew back, "We are guarding our Black Throne, the history of those great Emperors that have come long before him and the futures of those that will come after him, and we guard Alonellónë; our holy palace."
'Ah-loh-nel-LOH-nay,' Yanis played with the pronunciation silently, and he found it rather euphonious, entertaining himself with its sounds.
He began walking the length ahead of their gathering, "What we serve, and commit our blood, lives and progeny to, is the continuity of this ethereal Empire that has stood for longer than any of us, our forefathers, and their ancestors before them can hope to trace."
The commander continued into a long and agonising speech beyond that, emphasising the importance of the crown, the Empire and the qualities of a man who becomes Emperor.
Yanis found himself discontented by instinct, and for a long time, intrigue around himself was more amusing than whatever Khehlun had been saying that was of no importance to him.
'Tradition,' Yanis almost couldn't quite hold back the strange thought. 'In other words: Peer pressure from the dead.'
After his indoctrinating speech, Khehlun walked them through the guard rotational assignments.
The lower corridors were for senior guards, and the captains, as well as the approach routes to the Sanctum – the sacred chamber deep beneath the palace where the ritualistic preparations before the actual coronation in the throne room happened.
Yanis at the least appreciated that for the sake of the mercenaries like himself, Khehlun had given this brief; from the way he spoke about it, it was something that he had explained prior, but perhaps, one of theirs in another meeting had asked and thus he had decided to give the explanation regardless.
With his gaze drifting, he noticed other people in simple leather armour like he was in, and guessed that for whatever reason, Alonellónë was running low on a comfortable number of guards, to the point mercenaries like them that had been hired to supplement their guard numbers, along with the junior guards, were assigned to the upper corridors.
And after mentioning those details, he went on with more about particular positions to take within their corridors should they need to pause for rest.
"Commander," One of the younger guards there raised a hand. "Does His Majesty have specific security preferences we should account for? Things he wants handled differently than standard protocol?"
Khehlun considered the question for a moment, then shook his head.
"I appreciate the thought however the coronation ceremony follows established protocol for good reason. The structures that have been in place since the First Emperor are not traditions that were decided on arbitrarily." He gestured to everyone and by now, he had walked himself over to the back wall, nearer to where the door that he had entered from way.
"We, and Alonellónë, serve as a part of the ritual. "And there, he placed his palm over it, "Capriciously going astray from these undermines and may potentially invalidate Quintin's inauguration. He understands this, so you need not worry about potentially being in a position to have to deny him a willful request."
A younger guard nearby Yanis, leaned toward his companion and, with a low voice that Yanis was able to catch, spoke, "Must be strange for him, though. All of a sudden, he-"
"What any of us feel about the timing does not change what needs to happen." Khehlun interrupted, though not unkindly.
"The Sanctum has been prepared as necessary. From tonight onward, access will be restricted to essential personnel until the ceremony." Khehlun's voice dropped, and his brows furrowed deep, threatening, "All amongst you, must carry out your duty understanding that the ceremony you serve is the soul of our Empire itself."
At those words, Yanis's brows had furrowed faintly, for once not for the more unpleasant reason.